Category Archives: nationalday

Every year, volunteers with the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore (ICCS) celebrate National Day with a coastal cleanup @ Lim Chu Kang beach and mangrove. This year we will be working @ Lim Chu Kang East on Saturday 5th Aug 2017: 8.00am – 10.30am.

To join us, Sign up here by 1st August 2017! (Indicate if you need transport by selecting the right ticket type)Transport will be provided from Kranji MRT to the cleanup site @ Lim Chu Kang East.

Why do we conduct coastal cleanups? Habitats along Singapore’s coastlines host an amazing biodiversity and trash present in these areas impact our wildlife adversely and devalue the natural beauty of the landscape. Coastal cleanups conducted by volunteers around the world remove this trash, raise awareness about the impact of marine trash, and motivate us to work towards solutions including sustainable daily practises.

Lim Chu Kang East is an unprotected but precious patch of wetland, located in the northwest of Singapore. Incoming trash from the Johor Straits is regularly deposited on the shoreline and impacts the animals, plants and the organisms of the ecosystem there.

Meeting Point: Participants can meet at the bus stop outside Kranji MRT (Bus code: 45139) and will be transported to the cleanup site at Lim Chu Kang Lane 9, or meet us at the venue itself.

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101 people have signed up to celebrate National Day in a meaningful way with the pre-National Day mangrove cleanup at Lim Chu Kang East. Registration closes tomorrow.

The happy news is that the mangrove at the original site has a very low load of trash after an earlier year-round coastal cleanup in late June. So we are tackling the adjacent area of Lim Chu Kang East mangrove (view the map). We began working at this site in 2011 (see photos here and the burden of trash there has been reduced considerably.

Still, the 100 of us will have our work cut out for us.

There will ICCS cleanups a month after this, at both LCK and LCKE mangroves. These sites are experiencing their best relief from macro-trash in recent decades, which has been carefully achieved at several sites now, to manage impact even as we remove marine trash. What a grand and gradual effort by volunteers over 20 years!

For this cleanup, we’ve conducted our recce, booked two 45-seater buses to fetch volunteers from Kranji MRT, prepared the stores, updated participants, sought permission from SPF via SLA, and informed NEA DPC to help with trash removal – they all replied very quickly, by the way. And we look forward to the company of people who are making an effort to celebrate National Day in a meaningful way!

Every year, volunteers with the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore (ICCS) celebrate National Day with a coastal cleanup @ Lim Chu Kang beach and mangrove. This year we will be working on Saturday 6th Aug 2016: 8.00am – 10.30am.

Why do we conduct coastal cleanups? Habitats along Singapore’s coastlines host an amazing biodiversity and trash present in these areas impact our wildlife adversely and devalue the natural beauty of the landscape. Coastal cleanups conducted by volunteers around the world remove this trash, raise awareness about the impact of marine trash, and motivate us to work towards solutions. including sustainable daily practises.

Lim Chu Kang beach and mangrove is an unprotected but precious patch of wetland, located in the northwest of Singapore. Incoming trash from the Johor Straits is regularly deposited on the shoreline and impacts the animals, plants and the organisms of the ecosystem there.

Meeting Point: Participants can meet at the bus stop outside Kranji MRT (Bus code: 45139) and will be transported to the cleanup site at Lim Chu Kang road end, or meet us at the venue itself.

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7 August 2015, Friday — It was the first day of the Jubilee Weekend, and ICCS was down at Lim Chu Kang Beach and Mangrove celebrating National Day in our usual fashion; with a coastal cleanup! Altogether 48 volunteers showed our love for Singapore by removing 749kg of trash in 92 trash bags out of her Lim Chu Kang habitats.

Northwest Zone Captain Adriane Lee and I arrived on site earlier with the logistics, and did a quick recce before the participants arrived. Trash was abundant on the coastline, with various types of plastics hanging from branches and strewn under the trees.

Our hearts were filled with accomplishment at the sight of a mangrove relieved of trash so early that morning. We transferred trash bags to three Trash Collection Points (TCP) for weighing and formed a chain to transfer the weighed bags to the Trash Disposal Point at the edge of the jetty. This prearranged point with NEA’s Department of Public Cleanliness would be where the contractor would collect later.

Throughout the cleanup, we encountered mangrove horseshoe crab (Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda) moults and we used the specimens to introduce these amazing mangrove critters to the cleanup volunteers. I also talked about other cleanup and guiding efforts conducted by NUS Toddycats. ICCS Coordinator Sivasothi aka Otterman rounded up the session with the conservation and research history of this site, the importance our remaining mangrove patches and the value of the morning’s effort at relieving the site of impactful trash.

Left: Talking about mangrove horseshoe crabs (Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda) using moults we found. Right: Cleanup volunteers listening intently to Sivasothi’s stories about Mandai and Lim Chu Kang mangroves in the 80’s and 90’s and how as an NUS undergraduate in the 80’s, he was was dismayed by the phenomenal amount of pollution there.

Otterman’s large Singapore Flag had disappeared this year – so the red and white shirted participants arranged themselves into a flag!

Do you see the flag?

Thank you to everyone for a sensitive and effective cleanup at Lim Chu Kang, and I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate our nation’s 50th birthday!

Singapore celebrates her 50th year of independence in August and once again, volunteers with the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore (ICCS) celebrate National Day with a Coastal Cleanup @ Lim Chu Kang beach and mangrove. This time we are working on first day of the Jubilee Weekend – Friday 7th Aug 2015: 8.00am – 10.30am.

Sign up by 4th August 2015 to join us! Transport will be provided from Kranji MRT to the cleanup site @ Lim Chu Kang beach and mangrove

Why do we conduct coastal cleanups? Habitats along Singapore’s coastlines host an amazing biodiversity and trash present in these areas impact our wildlife adversely and devalue the natural beauty of the landscape. Coastal cleanups conducted by volunteers around the world remove this trash, raise awareness about the impact of marine trash, and motivate us to work towards solutions. including sustainable daily practises. Lim Chu Kang beach and mangrove is an unprotected but precious patch of wetland, located in the northwest of Singapore. Incoming trash from the Johor Straits is regularly deposited on the shoreline and impacts the animals, plants and the organisms of the ecosystem there.

Meeting Point: Participants can meet at the bus stop outside Kranji MRT (Bus code: 45139) and will be transported to the cleanup site at Lim Chu Kang road end, or meet us at the venue itself.Itinerary

On 9th August 2014, a group of volunteers celebrated National Day in a meaningful way — by battling marine trash at Lim Chu Kang Mangrove. 83 volunteers showed up and cleared 1.135 tonnes of trash. This is the seventh year we have conducted the cleanup in celebration of National Day.

Our volunteers worked sensitively and cleared trash both from the sandbank as well as from the mangrove. It was a pleasure to work with highly motivated individuals and we completed the clean up ahead of time at 10.30am. Once again, thank you for your lovely camaraderie on National Day, we hope to see you again next year!

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Last year, five of my students and an ICCS Organiser were issued a “stern warning” for trespassing on state land at Tanah Merah – you can read about it here. These signs certainly caught us by surprised as ITE College West (School of Engineering) and Nanyang Girls’ Boarding School had worked at Tanah Merah 7 for ICCS 2013 the previous week without incident.

These new signs are different from all others which have previously marked State Land – they promise that “Trespassers will be arrested”. And indeed several people have been served notice since.

In response to queries about the incident, Singapore Police Force (SPF), the National Environment Agency (NEA) and the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) met to discuss a response. And thereafter, SLA offered to liase with SPF on behalf of ICCS for access to restricted State Land sites. We provided SLA a list of all sites at which our volunteers conduct coastal cleanups early this year and all was ready.

In the past couple of weeks, as we conducted recce trips, we put the mechanism to work. Informing SLA, they have relayed our requests to SPF who have granted us access each time. It has been a smooth process although it has put an end to spontaneous trips.

New signs at Lim Chu Kang

Ground recces reveal just two more of our current sites are affected by the new signs in addition to Tanah Merah 7, namely Lim Chu Kang and Lim Chu Kang East – for now. For the upcoming international ICCS event in September, Zone Captains for these areas (Adriane Lee for North-West and Hannah Leong for Tanah Merah) will provide a Point of Contact to SPF via SLA and will have Organisers prepare a nominal list of volunteers complete with NRIC (or FIN) numbers.

Whatever the challenges SPF is facing along our coasts, this procedure ensures volunteer coastal cleanups along our shores are able to continue their fight against marine trash.

This Saturday, for the seventh year, I am organising a National Day mangrove cleanup at Lim Chu Kang. Permission has already been provided by SPF via SLA and I have nominal roll of volunteers against which we will take attendance – a quick exercise after which we return to the business of tackling marine trash, a loving gesture by a group of people in celebration of National Day.